New Lower Pottsgrove board wants to cut library funding, add police

New Lower Pottsgrove Commissioner Shawn Watson, seen here being sworn in Monday night by District Judge Edward C. Kropp Sr., is part of the new majority on the township board. (Mercury Photo by Evan Brandt)

LOWER POTTSGROVE — New township commissioners’ Chairman Bruce Foltz is the first to acknowledge that he and the new majority on the board made a lot of changes in their first meeting of the year Monday night.

In fact, he said so in comments at the close of the meeting.

“We want the staff, fire department, solicitor, and commissioners to have the same goal; for the township to be user friendly,” said Foltz at the close of Monday’s re-organization meeting during which he was elected chairman and many of the immediate changes were implemented.

“We want to bring businesses into the township and have it not be a hassle, with all the back and forth, for our contractors and developers,” Foltz said.

Advertisement

The most immediate changes included the replacement of longtime solicitor and former commissioner Kurt Holloway with attorney Robert Brant; the elimination of the assistant township manager’s position and a decision to re-open the 2014 budget for a number of reasons.

Reading from a list, Foltz said the budget is being re-opened at the Feb. 3 meeting in order to make several changes including:

• Cutting $10,000 from the township’s allocation to the Pottstown Regional Public Library;

• Increasing, by $400, the township’s allocation to the Pottstown Area Senior Center;

• Hiring a new police officer in June and two sergeants mid-year;

• Eliminating the assistant manager position and giving raises to newly hired manager Ed Wagner and to two other employees, Jennifer Griffiths and Michele Cappelletti, who will assume some of the duties previous handled by the assistant manager.

Under a proposal he showed to a reporter, Wagner would see a $10,000 raise; $5,000 as of this month and an additional, $5,000 on July 1.

(Ironically, Wagner once held the position of assistant township manager under Rodney Hawthorne, who retired this year, but left to become township manager in New Hanover.)

Cappelletti and Griffiths would each get an increase of $4,100 in 2014 to handle the extra work once done in the assistant manager’s office, under Foltz’s proposal.

The township now has 17 police patrol officers. At the meeting, Police Chief Michael Foltz, who is Bruce Foltz’s son, outlined a plan to increase to 20 the number of officers in the township by 2018.

Overall, Foltz said after the meeting, the changes would save taxpayers $70,000.

Commissioner Jonathan Spadt, who had previously served as commissioners chairman and who indicated he is now in the minority on the board, objected to cutting library funding, but said he supports increasing police.

Spadt abstained from voting for the new solicitor, saying as a lawyer, he is thinks both Brant and Halloway are good lawyers and a vote either way might be misconstrued as a slight on the other.

Spadt also initiated a pointed conversation about the elimination of the assistant manager’s position, which had been held for several years by Alyson Elliott, who was understandably absent from Monday night’s meeting.

“Let’s be transparent about this. This is not a budgetary change, you fired Alyson,” Spadt said.

Foltz disagreed, saying “I won’t want to see anyone lose their job in this day and age. I don’t like to use the word ‘fire,’ we just didn’t think we needed the position.”

“For the last two years, we have asked for a definition of the job, what the assistant manager did and we could never get an answer,” said Commissioner Stephen Klotz. “Alyson did a great job when she was here. I didn’t have a problem with her. We are eliminating the position.”

Klotz, Foltz and newly elected Commissioner Shawn Watson, who ousted incumbent Republican Michael J. McGroaty in the spring primary, represent the new majority of the board, even though each and every member of the board is a Republican.

Kaiser, Spadt and James Kaiser, who was reelected in November, had previously comprised a voting majority on controversial votes.

Kaiser was absent from the meeting and was sworn in to office earlier in the week, Wagner told the audience.

When it came time for members of the audience to speak, nearly all public comment focused on urging the commissioners not to cut the allocation to the library.

For 10 years, Lower Pottsgrove contributed $60,000 to the library budget and under the 2014 budget adopted by the previous board, it would be increased that contribution by $5,000.

However, Foltz’s proposal would cut it by $10,000, back to $55,000.

“We go to the library all the time,” said Kepler Road resident Virginia Smith. “They have wonderful programs there all the time, chemistry for kids over the summer and reading programs. I was amazed,” she said.

Allan Altschull, vice president of the Pottstown Cluster of Religious Communities, thanked the township for its holiday food drive this year, but urged the commissioners not to cut library funding.

“The library is an important avenue for people of Lower Pottsgrove to get out of poverty,” Altschull said. “Getting out of poverty is an educational process and its something that happens through the library. It’s unfortunate people in this area are not educated as well as they could be and to remove funding would be a negative thing.”

Jim Phillips, himself a former township commissioner, urged the board to reconsider as well.

As a former chairman of the township’s budget committee, he sympathized with the difficulty of putting a township budget together. “I know how hard it is,” Phillips said.

He said news in December of the $5,000 increase in the township’s allocation was “exceedingly well received” at the library.

He noted that Lower Pottsgrove Township, despite being the 12th largest municipality in Montgomery County, is “dead last” among them in the amount it contributes to its library.

“I don’t think you actually know what goes on at the library or the number of Lower Pottsgrove children it serves,” he said. “I challenge any of you to go visit the library before you vote and see all they are doing. I guarantee you will change your minds.”

Foltz, Klotz and Watson each agreed to visit the library before making a decision.

Foltz said costs are going up and “there are things we need,” pointing to additional police officers.

Klotz also pointed to police and fire services as his first priority, noting “I think we should put safety over anything else. If there are going to be cuts, they are not going to happen in the police or fire budgets.”

Phillips replied that “those other municipalities with less population than we have, all handle funding for fire and police and they still manage to contribute more money to their library than we do.”

Spadt told the commissioners that there is a misconception that libraries are less necessary because of technology.

“Everyone says its all computers now, but there are children in this township who don’t have computers and they use the computers at that library. There are people in this community looking for work who don’t have computers at home and they need to use the computers in that library.”

“I agree we need to adequately fund police. I agree we need to adequately fund fire services, and we are increasing funding to police and we raised the fire tax to increase funding to the fire companies,” said Spadt. “This is no different.”

About the Author

Evan Brandt has worked for The Mercury since November 1997. His beat includes Pottstown, the surrounding townships and the Pottstown and Pottsgrove school districts, as well as other varied general topics like politics, the environment and education. Reach the author at ebrandt@pottsmerc.com
or follow Evan on Twitter: @PottstownNews.